Chapter 33

“It’s not what I think?” I asked. “You’re holding a gold chain in your hand.”

Xander looked at the chain and then back at me. “You can put the gun away. I don’t know how it ended up here. I promise.”

He took a step toward me.

“Don’t move,” I said.

“I was just … I was going to give it to you.”

“Stay where you are. If you want to give it to someone, you can give it to the police when they get here.”

“The police? No, no, no. We don’t need any police. We just need to talk, to?—”

Outside, I heard what sounded like a vehicle turning into the driveway.

It wasn’t the police.

No one knew I was here.

Xander turned, looking over his shoulder as he said, “Marcus is home.”

Marcus.

My mind was a flurry of emotions, thoughts entering and exiting all at once.

And then clarity came.

A decision needed to be made, and fast.

I hid the gun back beneath my shirt.

“Where did you find that chain?” I asked.

“In the spare bedroom Marcus has been staying in. I was looking through the drawers for a box where I keep some of my old high school memorabilia, and I … I …”

“You what?”

Xander’s eyes widened.

“No, it can’t be true,” he said. “It can’t be. He wouldn’t have …”

Except he did.

“You understand what this means, don’t you?” I asked.

Xander started panting like he was struggling to catch his breath, and he said, “You need to leave. Right now. Hurry. You can go out the back door. Maybe he won’t see your car parked across the street.”

“I’m staying.”

“You can’t. It’s not safe. He and I, we need to talk. I need to understand. You gotta get out of here.”

The front door opened, and Marcus came inside.

Xander made a fist, attempting to conceal the chain in his hand.

Marcus looked at Xander and then at me. “Well, well, nice seeing you again, Detective. What brings you by today?”

Xander cleared his throat and said, “The … ahh, the detective stopped by to ask me a few more questions. Nothing major.”

Marcus’ eyes narrowed into tiny slits. “You know something, little brother … you’ve never been a good liar.”

“I’m not lying. The detective was just leaving.”

Marcus moved his hands to his hips, grunting out a laugh. “Why leave? Stay a while. I’ll make dinner, and we can all talk. Seems to me like we have a lot to talk about, wouldn’t you say? We can start with the gold chain you’re hiding from me.”

There was no sense lying about it now.

Marcus had seen it already.

Not that I minded.

If Marcus wanted to get it all out in the open, I was happy to oblige.

I was happy to shoot him too … I just needed a reason, and I hoped he’d give me one. After what he’d done, it was the least I could do.

“Xander found a gold chain in the guest room,” I said. “The same room you’re staying in, Marcus. Care to explain?”

Marcus ran a hand along his chin. “Well now, I wouldn’t know. Have you asked Xander? It’s his house, and that room is filled with his stuff. I’d say he has some explaining to do.”

“I have some explaining to do?” Xander asked. “I’d say you have some explaining to do.”

“Don’t be coy, brother. Why are you holding out on us?”

“Let me make it clear for you, Marcus,” I said. “Jackson, Aidan, and Owen were given gold chains by their football coach. Pieces of a gold chain were found at the crime scene. I saw them this morning when I stopped by to talk to the medical examiner. Care to know what else we spoke about? Aidan had skin cells beneath his fingernails.”

“Blah, blah, blah,” Marcus said. “Get to the flipping point.”

“When the murders were committed, the skin cells weren’t a match to anyone in the database. But skin cells contain DNA, as I’m sure you know. If I suspect someone of those murders, and the police get a warrant for said person, we could test that person’s DNA against the DNA collected twenty years ago. Take a minute to think about that … let it marinate. I’ll wait.”

Xander turned toward me, his voice strained as he said, “I had no idea the chain was even there until a few minutes ago. I swear.”

“I believe you,” I said.

Marcus clapped his hands together. “Well, isn’t that sweet? What do you suppose we do now?”

I lifted my shirt, showing Marcus the gun I had aimed at his chest.

“Hands up, Marcus,” I said.

“Hands up … or what?”

“Xander, call the police,” I said.

“He will do no such thing,” Marcus said. “He’s a softie. He’d need a backbone to do that, and he’s never had one.”

“Call the police, Xander,” I repeated.

Xander wiped his brow and said, “I … uhh … I don’t know … I …”

“There’s only one play here,” I said. “There’s no point defending your brother. He wasn’t going to defend you. Didn’t you hear what he just said? He was trying to blame you, to make it seem like you’re the guilty one, not him.”

“Don’t listen to her,” Marcus said.

“Both of you, be quiet!” Xander said. “I need to think.”

“There’s nothing to think about,” Marcus said. “We can solve this little predicament we’ve gotten ourselves into here and now. We can make it all go away.”

“She has a gun,” Xander said.

“So what?” Marcus scoffed. “A gun’s nothing if a person isn’t prepared to use it.”

“Give me a reason,” I said. “I’ve been waiting for one.”

“Tough words for a little lady in a flirty little skirt,” Marcus said. “You expect us to believe you’re woman enough to pull the trigger? Because I don’t.”

“Tell me something … why keep the gold chain and why bring it here, to your brother’s house?”

Marcus turned toward Xander and said, “I bet we can get to her before she gets a shot off. What do you say?”

“No,” Xander said. “We’re not going to hurt her. We’re going to let her go.”

“Just how stupid are you?” Marcus shouted. “We can’t let her go. I mean, we could have, but you had to go and show her the chain. This is your fault. Your mess. You need to clean it up now for both of us.”

His speech was so convincing, it almost deserved a round of applause.

Almost.

“Your acting performance yesterday, pretending like you had no idea your brother was being bullied when he was in school,” I said. “Well done.”

“Oh, I knew, and I knew all about what happened in the park. Dad told me. Took him hours to get Xander to admit who’d done it to him.”

“If your dad knew who was involved, why didn’t he tell the police?” I asked.

“My dad was the type of person who felt it was best to take matters into our own hands, if you know what I mean. He didn’t think I’d take it as far as I did, of course.”

A tear rolled down Xander’s cheek.

He brushed it away and said, “How could you, Marcus?”

“Don’t shed a tear for those brats,” Marcus said. “Those kids deserved what happened to them. Sometimes an example needs to be made, consequences paid. Ask me, what I did … it was justified.”

Xander’s classmates may have thought Xander had a few screws loose, but the loose screw wasn’t Xander, it was Marcus.

“They were my friends,” Xander said.

“They weren’t your friends. They hated you. They made fun of you. They made everyone in school see you as a chump, someone they could do whatever they wanted to because you didn’t have what it took to stand up for yourself.”

Marcus shot me a wink and then took a step in my direction, testing my resolve. I welcomed it.

“Take one more step, and I will shoot you,” I said.

“Hold on a minute,” Xander said. “No one needs to shoot anybody. We can work this out.”

“No more small talk,” Marcus said. “This ends now.”

Xander faced his brother. “I won’t let you hurt anyone else.”

“Suit yourself,” Marcus said. “All these years, you haven’t changed a bit. It’s just like always … if something needs to be done, I have to do it myself.”

Marcus lunged for the gun.

Xander reached for his brother.

And I fired.